In recent years, the number of intelligent mobile devices, for example, pagers, smart wireless telephones, laptop computers and personal digital assistants (“PDAs”), has increased dramatically. Together with the increasing number of intelligent mobile devices has come increased interest in the delivery of internet protocol (“IP”) data and services to such devices. However, there remain significant network architecture issues which affect the delivery of IP data packets over wireless networks such as wireless local area networks (“WLANs”). One such issue relates to the ability of the wireless network to locate the desired recipient of an IP data packet. Heretofore, the problems experienced by the wireless network when attempting to locate a mobile station have resulted in significant waste of wireless resources. Because the wireless network is often unsure of the location of a mobile station, the mobile station must be paged by plural access points even though the mobile station is in communication with only one such access point. Such an approach to locating mobile stations unnecessarily consumes wireless resources since bandwidth which could be dedicated to delivering IP data packets must instead be used to page the mobile stations. This approach also contributes to a shortened battery life for mobile stations. When inactive, a mobile station will often enter a power-save mode to conserve battery life. However, whenever a page is broadcast by its access point, the mobile station must wake-up and check each such page to determine if it is directed to them. As a result, the mobile station must consume much more power than if it was allowed to stay in the power-save mode.
Because of these shortcomings in current wireless IP techniques, many wireless IP applications have not been implemented. Accordingly, by configuring a wireless network into a hierarchical architecture having plural levels and implementing selected WiARP functionality in each level, a wireless network in which an IP data packet can be delivered to a mobile station without the need to resort to the broadcasting functions which characterized prior wireless network architectures may be achieved.